It’s no secret that I’m a ridiculous Whedon geek. I own pretty much everything he’s produced on DVD, I still remember the first episode of Buffy I ever watched (“Restless,” the season four finale, in a deserted hotel in northern Manitoba), and I’ll even defend Dollhouse to the skeptics. Now that he’s officially directing the Avengers movie, it’s a good time to look back at the best and worst of what’s happened under his direction.
The Best
Roseanne, “Brain-Dead Poets Society” (1990). For all the supernatural and science-fictiony elements of Whedon’s shows, his chief preoccupation is family (see the Buffy episode “Family,” for example). It’s no surprise that he developed his writing skills in the second season of Roseanne. This episode, in which Darlene reads her poetry at a school assembly and emotionally gut-punches her mother, juggles notions of discipline, love and the relationship between mother and daughter.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer, “Hush,” “Restless,” “The Body,” “Once More With Feeling” (1999-2001). Buffy ran for seven seasons, with plenty of highs and lows, but these four Whedon-written episodes are probably the stand-outs. “Hush” pulls off the remarkable trick of having no spoken dialogue for two-thirds of the running time. “Restless” is a dream sequence episode that actually feels like a dream. “Once More With Feeling” is a nihilist supernatural musical. But the most memorable is probably “The Body,” in which Buffy deals with the sudden death of her mother.
Angel, “Reunion” and “Reprise” (2000). Over its five seasons, Angel was a difficult and uneven show that seemed constantly engaged in a creative logrolling contest. Its surest and steadiest arc spanned a block of episodes in season two, when Angel abandons his companions and descends into an existential nightmare. “Reunion” marks the point at which we realize that the character has stepped off a moral cliff, while “Reprise” lays out the basic philosophical foundation of the show and defines the enemy against which Angel fights (hint: it’s an utterly quixotic battle against human nature).
Angel, “Smile Time” and “Not Fade Away” (2003). Welcome to Angel’s last and strangest season, in which the underdog heroes go from fighting the LA branch of pan-dimensional evil law firm Wolfram & Hart to suddenly running the LA branch of etcetera etcetera. The change, along with the drastically reduced budget, gave the series some much-needed focus and creativity. By far the most inventive and whimsical episode of the season, “Smile Time” featured a demonic children’s show with evil puppets. Angel himself is turned into a puppet, complete with removable felt nose and emotional issues. And “Not Fade Away” is simply one of the best series finales I’ve ever seen.
Firefly, “Out of Gas”. For a show that lasted only fourteen episodes, Firefly hit its stride quickly and produced some great television. “Out of Gas” is a remarkably well-executed episode that cuts between three different timelines as a fatally injured Captain Mal Reynolds attempts to repair his dying spaceship. The episode flashes back to the introduction of the various crew members and ends with a touching image of Mal catching sight of Serenity for the first time. Like Whedon’s previous shows, Firefly was about home and family, and “Out Of Gas” might be the strongest statement of the theme.
Doctor Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog. When the Writers Guild of America went on strike in 2007 and and stuck a sword through network television, Whedon and his family created an internet-only musical about a wannabe supervillain in love. The production values were extremely high for a web series, but it demonstrated the viability of the internet for filmed entertainment.
Dollhouse, “Echo” and “Epitaph One”. It’s probably not a ringing endorsement of a series when my top picks are an unaired pilot and an unaired season finale. “Echo” was a quiet, reflective and downright strange bit of television, and it’s not hard to see why the network asked for something different. You can feel Whedon figuring out the justification for the show as he moves from scene to scene, and the experience is unsettling and a bit mesmerizing. “Epitaph One,” which only appeared on DVD, was filmed on the cheap and barely featured the series regulars. It was a coda to the show and probably the closest thing to genuine science fiction that Whedon has ever done.
The Worst
Buffy, “Beer Bad” and “Lies My Parents Told Me”. Buffy was a wonderful show, but it had its share of terrible episodes. “Beer Bad,” in which a cursed microbrew turns Buffy into a snorting, grunting cavewoman, was straight-up stupid. But at least the episode wasn’t meant to be taken seriously. “Lies My Parents Told Me,” on the other hand, looks almost identical to a good Buffy episode, which makes its crappiness even harder to take. “Lies” is the final attempt to bestow human psychology on the character of Spike. It is entirely unnecessary and so bluntly Freudian that it provokes a sort of numbness in the viewer.
Angel, “She,” “Soulless,” “The Girl In Question”. Angel had its low points as well. “She,” a ham-fisted attempt at addressing the issue of genital mutilation, belongs in the bin of rejected Star Trek ideas. Plus it stars Bai Ling. “Soulless” is probably the lowest point of the entire series, a protracted set of scenes of Angel in evil mode, smirking in a cage and insulting the other characters (and the audience). The series was clearly in chaos at this point. As for “The Girl In Question,” in which Spike and Angel quibble over who truly deserves to be with Buffy, just skip it.
Firefly, “Heart of Gold”. Apparently crew members referred to this episode as “Heart of Poo” and “Shower of Gold”. Whedon’s shows fare worst when they cross the event horizon of genre entertainment and plunge too deeply into the conventions they’re playing with. “Heart of Gold” attempts to defibrillate the Western frontier tropes of the frontier tyrant and the hooker with a heart of gold, but it should have just let them die.
Dollhouse, “Stage Fright”. It’s a safe bet that Whedon will never participate again in anything as skin-crawlingly bad as this. “Stage Fright,” in which Echo goes undercover as a bodyguard for a pop singer with a death wish, felt like an unholy three-way between Quantum Leap, Rent and Valley of the Dolls. It was a realization of the show’s worst possibilities.
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